Hello Kitty Turns 40, Hasn’t Aged a Day

You’d probably be forgiven for thinking that Hello Kitty was invented some time back in the mid-80s J-Pop heyday, back when everybody had a Hello Kitty-branded trinket or clothing item of some sort, and liking anime was a sign of cutting-edge cool (anime was like the PBR of the 80s).

But it turns out Hello Kitty is probably older than the majority of our readers, at 40 years old last Friday. The iconic cat was designed back in 1974, which almost certainly means whatever dark magics and machinery are keeping her alive are in need of a recharge.

There’s probably also a lot about Hello Kitty you didn’t know, as evidenced by this almost sadly in-depth analysis over at Gawker. Like, did you know that Hello Kitty has an on-again, off-again boyfriend called Dear Daniel? And that they’ve even been married several times, which means you can now use Hello Kitty as a wonderful education tool to teach your kids all about divorce? Also, disturbingly, that Dear Daniel is possibly actually a human girl? And that Dear Daniel might also be dead?